Two-Way Street by Lauren Barnholdt

Two-Way Street by Lauren Barnholdt ☆☆☆☆

Amazon recommendation based on my wishlist. I was so excited to read this that I had to drive across town to get it from another library because I didn't want to wait for that library to ship it to mine. And I was pleasantly surprised.

The story is about a girl that has to drive across country to college with her ex that broke up with her two weeks before for another girl he met on the internet. Yeah, cruel and unusual punishment. But this story was so so so much more.

The first notable thing about this book is that it is set in alternating points-of-view. You get to see both sides of the story, his and hers. It's not a writing style I typically read, but being this was the second book I read recently with that style I was familiar at least. What was unfamiliar and interesting was that it was set in alternating time periods also. And it wasn't confusing! The story begins when their road trip begins, yet as you alternate between each of their voices, the story goes back in time to show their different views on how they first met and how their relationship started and progressed. You get to see how they fall in love in the midst of experiencing their breakup and it is amazingly written.

This book was so well written and engaging that I read it in one day, which doesn't happen for me. Even my favorite books take three days to a week to read. (The ones for school I typically read in a day, but that was because I procrastinated and had to go without sleep to get it read in time.) I just couldn't put this story down and it was reading so quickly. And this book made me feel incredibly smart, I figured out what was going on early on in the book before it was revealed and it was not obvious in the slightest. I love books that are constructed so well that if you really pay attention you can work it out. It shows that the author has a lot of foresight about what is going on behind the scenes in her book and where she intends to go with her information.

So why did it lose a star if I'm speaking so highly of it? Careless errors. I hate typos and the most careless they are the more I lose faith in the book. So there was one main typo in it, but I could excuse it: doing instead of going as it should have read. A one letter mistake can be forgiven even if it throws off the whole sentence. What I couldn't forgive was the author and/or editor not paying attention to the story itself. I don't know how many people remember the great movie mistake in Pretty Woman where she goes from eating a pancake to eating a waffle because of the way the scenes were cut together, this story did that....not once, but twice. The first happened during the first time Courtney and Jordan went out to eat and she picked up her hot chocolate to drink and set down her coffee. I though I read something wrong and went back over it several times. A few chapters later, Courtney is sitting at lunch with her best friend who picks up her chocolate milk to drink, then drinks from the soda she's holding, then drinks from her chocolate milk. And no, she didn't have two drinks. Besides, who drinks milk and soda together?

So this story was freaking awesome beyond awesome and if you can get passed those two errors and the typo then it's the perfect book to read this summer. So stop reading this review and pick it up already!